There have been three different stations in San Diego called KJQY or K-Joy. The original was an easy listening music radio station based in San Diego. The call letters first appeared on May 20, 1979 when the call letters of beautiful music station KOZN-FM 103.7 were changed.
The original KJQY was a beautiful music station that was owned by Westinghouse/Group W on 103.7. Sometime in the early 1990s, Group W sold 103.7. The revolving sets of new owners continuously updated the format, first to New Adult Contemporary/Light Jazz, and then eventually to Adult Contemporary. At some point, 103.7 ended up being owned by SFX, the same people who owned cross-town competitor KYXY 96.5 (which had better ratings). SFX promptly changed KJQY's format to Adult Rock, first changing the calls to KMKX and the name to "Rock Mix 103.7", and later to "Classic Hits 103.7 The Planet" and the call letters to KPLN, which is pretty much what it was until Howard Stern left CBS (including 103.7). CBS (the owners at that time and as of this writing) changed 103.7's call letters to KSCF, first as FM talk radio Free FM, and in 2007 to Hot Adult Contemporary Sophie (which is what it is at the time of this writing).
In the late 1990s, there was a second "KJQY", on 102.9 FM on what had been KSDO FM ( Top 40 and later as Classic rock), KSWV (yet another Soft AC/Light Jazz NAC station), KCLX (Classic Rock), and KKBH (All 70s Oldies "The Beach", Soft AC (also as the Beach) and Mainstream AC (as Mix 102.9).
By the time the station had switched to Mix 102.9, ownership had passed from Gannet, to Citicasters. After another sale, the station was with Jacor. KJQY's Program Director had research that showed that listeners still wrote KJQY in the ratings books. Realizing the potential, he changed the station's name to "KJoy 102.9" and call letters to KJQY in the fall of 1997. A few months later, Jacor was forced to spin off two frequencies, in return for two others they had purchased (along with most of NCI's frequencies). The decision was made to move KJQY to 94.1, while shutting down Hot Adult Contemporary Q106 and creating some form of Hot AC on 95.7. 102.9 and 106.5 were spun off to Heftel, (a primarily Spanish oriented broadcasting company), who turned 102.9 to Spanish language "KLQV."
KJQY stayed with the call letters but moved in a more oldies based direction, after market Oldies leader KBZT "KBEST 95" began having problems of their own and changed formats. KJQY took advantage of this, even using Bill Drake era styled jingles, similar to those KBEST had used for many years. In 2002, current owners Clear Channel decided to drop Hot AC and 80s from "Mix 95.7" and move KJQY's format over to 95.7 as KOCL, "KOOL 95.7" (although the KJQY call letters were actually used on the station for a few days in the very beginning), so that they could use 94.1's powerful 100,000 ERP watt signal for a Hot AC station to compete with market leader KFMB FM (Star 100.7). 94.1 took over the "Star" name after getting KFMB-FM's Star 100.7's popular morning show Jeff and Jer over, along with several other former 100.7 staffers. KFMB FM has dropped the “Star” label and is Jack FM”.
Another piece of irony is that while 102.9 had been KSDO twice, first in the 1980s and again for a short time in the early 90s, KSDO had actually been on 103.7 for a period in the 1970s, but few artifacts of this remain today.
As of 2007[update], the KJQY call letters haven't been assigned to a radio station since 2002.
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